Technology Review and Future Directions for Computer Generated Actors

The operation of high fidelity and reasonably priced computer-generated synthetic environments relies heavily upon computer-generated actors (CGAs). Unfortunately, the pace of technological development and the level of expected performance will almost certainly continue to rise at a much faster rate than improvements in CGA fidelity, reasoning, human behavior, and cognitive models and skills modeling. This ever-increasing expectation for fidelity and realism in computer-generated actors is fostered by the everincreasing performance of computer systems in general and the growing role that modeling and simulation plays in a variety of areas. These modeling and simulation application areas include training, analysis, acquisition, mission rehearsal, doctrine development, training, force structure analysis, and logistics analysis. In these and other uses of synthetic environments, computer-generated actors play a central role because they can significantly increase the realism and fidelity of the environment and potentially reduce the cost of operating the environment. The progress that has been made in addressing computer-generated actors technical challenges and the technical areas that should be the focus of future work are the subject of this paper. The paper opens with an overview of the achievements in CGA in a number of fields, including reasoning system techniques, CGA architectures, software tools, development and analysis technologies, and human behavior models. The paper concludes with our suggestions for future technical work and standardization efforts.